


Eventually (it's gonna be alright)

by absolutelyamethyst



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Brief Mentions Of Vomit, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Gen, Grief, Jedi Rey (Star Wars), Nightmares, Poe Dameron Has PTSD, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Rey is a good teacher, many feelings, poe has anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22582195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutelyamethyst/pseuds/absolutelyamethyst
Summary: Post-tros, discovering his Force-sensitivity is the last thing Poe needs, but it might put him right where he needs to be.
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624975
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Eventually (it's gonna be alright)

He’s Force-sensitive. 

He doesn’t know what that  _ means,  _ exactly--Finn and Rey ramble about it, sometimes, but that’s all incomprehensible jargon and space-wizard stuff, way over his head. He’s not sure how Finn understands it, but then, Rey is Rey, and she may be impatient, but she is a good teacher. 

He’s Force-sensitive. What the hell does that even  _ mean?  _

Is it the nightmares? Sometimes, when he’s sleeping, he catches glimpses of dreams that he knows aren’t his own. He sees things. Feels things, really feels things, deeper than he’s ever felt anything, and sometimes it hurts like his heart’s being wrenched in two, sometimes it’s waiting for family that never comes, sometimes he’s holding a gun in hands that aren’t his own, and he knows with everything in him that he can’t pull the trigger, he can’t. 

It takes a few weeks--weeks full of nights spent not sleeping, doing anything else but falling into bed sweaty and exhausted anyway--for him to start placing faces to each dream. Finn. The stormtrooper who rebelled. Rey. The girl who waited for parents who never came. 

He’s Force-sensitive. Not even his dreams are safe anymore. 

~

There’s a night where he wakes up from a nightmare. He doesn’t know what time it is. He barely remembers the dream he had, just how it made him  _ feel.  _ How Rey was feeling. 

He steps into the refresher, splashes water on his face, and grips the edges of the sink as another wave of anxiety-- _ not his, not his, he’s safe, he doesn’t need to be panicking-- _ washes over him. The fear fades into hopelessness, then determination, and Poe straightens. Somewhere in the base, Finn’s presence warms. It feels like he’s awake--the rude kind of waking up that sends you bolting out of bed, panicked, fearing the worst. 

The fact that he can sense that sends him doubling over again, water up to his wrists, splashing down his neck and soaking his shirt.  _ Kriff.  _ He’s a mess. A freaking mess, in over his head with this, this  _ space magic,  _ way out of his depth with no way out. 

He’s Force-sensitive. There’s nothing else it could be. 

He steps back, towel in hand, and stares at himself in the mirror. Water drips down his temples. His hair is damp. His eyes are red and sunken, wide and scared as he backs out of the refresher, faces his dark bedroom. 

Finn’s awake. 

Rey had a nightmare and he’s the only one who knows about it. 

He should go back to bed. He really,  _ really  _ should be sleeping. It’s late, and he’s in charge now, there’s so much to do, and he and Finn--

He’s worried about Rey. 

With a curse, Poe changes into a different--dry, warm--shirt and slips through the door of his room. BB-8 burbles behind him, confused, but Poe doesn’t stop--the droid follows, still beeping, whirring. 

He has to find Rey. He’s not sure what he’s gonna do when he finds her, but he will find her, make sure she’s okay, and then--he yawns--and then he’ll get back to sle-

“Ow-”

“Hey!”

“Poe?” 

_ “Finn?”  _ He backs up, blinking, and shakes his head. He laughs. It sounds nervous and tired, even to his own ears. “Sorry, buddy, I was just- I couldn’t sleep. Still groggy, I guess.” 

Finn nods. His gaze dances over Poe’s shoulder, towards the end of the hall. Towards Rey’s room. “I couldn’t sleep either,” he says. “I was going to check on Rey.” 

“Rey?” Poe’s voice cracks. “Is she- is she okay?” 

“She gets nightmares,” Finn says softly, “from what happened on Exegol.” 

Exegol. Poe’s blood runs cold. Something about the word sends Finn’s heart racing; Poe feels the anxiety mounting within him, has to breathe in deep to slow his own heart. 

“Finn,” he whispers, “what  _ did  _ happen on Exegol?” 

Finn freezes. “I can’t talk about it.” His voice turns dark, sad.  _ Scared.  _ “Not mine to tell.”

It’s fair. Poe sees the validity in it, but still...he can’t deny the fact that he wants to know what could possibly make Finn feel so  _ cold.  _

“Poe?” Finn stares at him, dark eyes curious, worried. “Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“‘M fine,” Poe gives him a lopsided grin. “Always am.”

~

Rey isn’t in her bedroom. Finn is the one who finds her, nestled in a quiet corner of the base, sitting with her legs crossed and her arms folded in her lap. Meditating. Disturbing her feels...wrong.

Silently, Finn approaches. His posture relaxes as he nears her, and he pauses for the slightest of moments before kneeling and mirroring Rey’s position. He goes still, serene, quiet. 

The two of them, they have something Poe doesn’t, they’re  _ experiencing  _ something Poe  _ can’t,  _ and he stares at them for several long moments before realizing that he  _ can.  _

It’s there, just out of reach, flickering out of the corner of his eye. An energy like a vapor, a--a-- Poe struggles, words failing, nothing  _ quite  _ enough to describe what he’s feeling, so he turns to the simple inevitability, the Thing: the Force. 

He’s Force-sensitive. 

_ Kriff.  _

“Poe,” Rey’s voice is clear, not sounding at all like a woman who’d just awoken from a nightmare, sounding calm, peaceful. “How long are you going to stand there?” 

“Uh.” His throat goes dry, his hands stiff and clammy as he takes a stumbling step forward, kneels behind Finn and shut his eyes, at a loss, unsure of what to do but this  _ feels  _ right, at least, his knees ache and he’s shivering, but at least Finn and Rey are in front of him and he’s not alone. 

Rey and Finn are a symphony, bands of bright light twining together, throbbing, glowing in the Force. He’s an outsider--they’re levels above him but at least he’s  _ here,  _ he can see it, can feel it too. Maybe not as powerfully, maybe he’s still new, but he’s here, and that’s enough.

~

He takes to meditating on his own, in the weeks following. It clears his head, keeps most of the nightmares away but not all--

_ Ren looms over him, breathing thick through the slits in his mask, hand shaking with the force of what he’s doing, squeezing thoughts, life, and breath out of Poe’s mind, leaving him hopeless, helpless, trapped. _

_ His throat constricts again, and his back arches as he strains to escape, a guttural scream tearing past his lips as he lurches forward-- _

And sits up, sobbing, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. 

BB-8 rolls to his side, beeping and whirring in confusion, head tilting, photoreceptor trained on Poe. 

“I’m fine, BeeBee-Ate,” Poe exhales. His hair is soaked with sweat, and his shees reek with the scent of salt and vomit. 

Vomit? 

He jumps out of bed, stepping to avoid tripping on the blankets, and stumbles into the bathroom just in time to release the bile burning in his throat. His knees give out. He lands hard on the tile floor, tears spilling from his cheeks, shaking because  _ it’s still right there, Ren’s gloved hand clamping an invisible grip around his throat, he can’t breathe-  _

“It’s not real!” He snarls, grabbing the top of the sink, hauling himself upward to glare at the mirror. “It’s not real.” Softer now, he touches a hand against the mirror and exhales. Reaches for something, anything to give him release-

_ “The greatest pilot in the galaxy.”  _

Something  _ pulses  _ out of him. His eyes snap open and he watches, horrified, as a jagged array of silvery cracks bloom out from his flattened palm, growing to fill every inch of the perimetered space. 

“Poe.” He whirls around. Rey stands behind him, her head tilted and her eyes sad. 

“Rey-” he croaks, coughing, his throat still burning. “Sorry- didn’t mean t’wake you,”

“Shut up,” she sighs, her gaze sweeping over the bathroom, landing on the mirror. “You need my help.” 

He shakes his head. Vigorously, tossing his hair out of his eyes so he can stare at her, but everything is blurry, and his eyes are dry. “I’m fine.” 

“Fine?” Rey lets a short, humorless laugh, her kind gaze turning stubborn. “You are not fine, Poe Dameron. You need help. My help. You need-” she sucks in a breath, and something inside her  _ stutters,  _ going cold,  _ sad  _ for a second before she sighs again, finishing, “a teacher. Please, Poe. Let me help you.”

He snorts. “You can’t.” 

“What?” 

“There’s nothing- you wouldn’t be helping. I’m just- I need sleep, there’s nothing wrong with me, Rey. Don’t try to-”

“I never said there was anything wrong with you,” Rey says softly. “Just that I can help.” 

“I don’t need your help.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t think I know what it feels like, the Force? How big it is, how powerful, everything that comes with being able to feel it?” 

“Is that what you think this is?” Poe laughs, but it’s dry, and there’s anger rising within him now because yes, anger is easier, easier than admitting that Rey’s  _ right,  _ and there’s something inside him that he doesn’t understand, a pull, a tug, a  _ feeling,  _ and he hates it, hates what it means- “You think I’m just going to start training, that I’ll become a Jedi just like you and- and Finn? Well news flash, Rey,  _ I’m not like you.  _ Or Finn. I’m a  _ pilot.  _ There’s nothing special about me.”

Rey watches him. He hates the patience in her eyes, the way he can see her temper being snuffed out as she inhales, shoulders rising and falling, like she’s in control. 

He stands up. He’s still shaky, but he ignores that, he’s  _ fine,  _ there’s nothing wrong with him, and he’s just-

“Do you know what brought me to you, just now?” Rey asks. “It was your nightmare, Poe. I sensed it. Sensed you, through the Force. You’re different. More aware. You’re  _ awake.  _ And you thought I wouldn’t notice.” 

“It was just a nightmare,” Poe says, not meeting her gaze. 

Rey shakes her head. “You were dreaming of him. Of--Ren.” There it was again--that hitch, the feelings conflicting within her, a tangle of threads both light and dark. “It wasn’t just the nightmare, Poe. You were calling out--crying, in the Force.” She sighs. “Get some sleep. Meditate, if you can. We’ll talk more in the morning.” 

Distantly, Poe stares at his bed, swiftly deciding that meditating sounds like a far better plan, and he nods, slowly. “Yeah, okay.”

~

“You’re Force-sensitive.” Finn stares at him, disbelieving. “You.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised, buddy,” Poe mutters, staring at the remnants of his breakfast. He snorts. “Look, I know. Shocked me too.”

“When did you first know?” Asks Finn, curiosity a vibrant thrum at the forefront of his mind. Poe shrugs. 

“Dunno.” Poe shoves his plate away from him, sighs. “Just...started with feelings, I guess- then the dreams,”

Finn frowns. “Dreams,” he says, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Like, visions?” 

“What?” Poe snorts. “No, like, nightmares. Not always mine. Other...people’s.” He winces. Suddenly, admitting that he’s seen into other people’s dreams doesn’t seem like a good idea-- especially when one of those people was Finn--but the Jedi-in-training doesn’t seem phased, just...curious. “It’s not as fun as it sounds,” he says, “mostly just depressing.” 

“Jedi-stuff usually is.” Finn nods, but he freezes as Rey nears,  _ just  _ catching what he says. 

“What was that?” She leers, “Jedi stuff is depressing?” 

“Rey!” Finn leaps to his feet, grabs Poe’s plate and his own, and nimbly steps over his chair to slip past Rey. “Look at that, I was just leaving, gotta go, uh, meditate-”

And then he’s gone.

“You must be one hell of a teacher if he’s that scared of you,” Poe says, and Rey smiles. 

“Are you busy?’ She asks. 

He glances around. Empty table, the hall around them is filled with pilots, techs, and strategists--all of them with some role or another, all of them just  _ eating, talking, relaxing  _ now; there’s a warm sort of buzz in the air, the kind that comes with peace and no fighting. 

If he wanted to, he could go sit down at any other table. He’d be welcome. He’s a general now, after all, and that means a lot of things but it definitely means he has a lot of friends. 

“Nah,” he says, because he’s been thinking about last night since this morning, when he woke up sore after falling asleep while meditating. “I’m not busy.” 

“Good.” She sits down, takes a deep breath. “Poe, you’re Force-sensitive.” 

“I...know?” He frowns. “I’m not...strong, like you or Finn, but I’m not- something’s different. I’m different.” 

Rey nods, but her eyebrows knit together and she shakes her head. He senses her disappointment, her disapproval, and scowls. 

“You’re comparing yourself to Finn and I- unfairly.” She says, tracing a finger across the table’s wooden grain. “And being Force-sensitive doesn’t mean you have to become a Jedi. I know what it does to you, thinking about the Force.” 

Poe’s throat goes dry. He’s- is he really that open? “You...know…”

“That the nightmares you have are about what happened when you were captured by Kylo Ren.” Rey nods. “He changed, in the end.” 

Anger curdles in Poe’s stomach. “He was a monster, Rey.”

“He was misled.” 

“He nearly killed his  _ own mother,  _ Rey,” Poe growls. “I don’t understand how you could forgive him after everything he did!” 

“He was lost and confused and lonely! The dark side warped his mind and guided him down the wrong path, it wasn’t his  _ fault!”  _ Rey  _ screeches  _ the last word, her eyes suddenly shining as tears spill down her cheeks, and Poe’s heart clenches at the sight because he’s an  _ idiot, an absolute idiot,  _ and he’s not the only one hurting at  _ all.  _

“I’m sorry.” He whispers. “For everything.” It’s the first time he says it and actually means it. 

Rey shuts her eyes, breathes in deep. “I know,” she says. “Me too.” 

Silence. Belatedly, Poe realizes that the noise in the cafeteria has gone down since they started arguing, and he can feel more than one pair of eyes on them, but that’s fine--to be expected, probably, really, they should all be used to it by now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want it to be like this.” Rey grimaces. “I wanted- look, Poe, being Force-sensitive doesn’t mean you’re going to become Kylo Ren. What you become is your choice. I’m...just a guide.” 

Poe blinks. “So...if I don’t want to become a Jedi…”

“It’s completely your choice. I told Finn the same thing.”

“Right.” Poe nods, sucks in a breath, and stands up. “You...won’t be disappointed if I say I need time to think?” 

“Of course not!” Rey smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Right.” Poe sighs. The fact that he’s even thinking about it--thinking about it seriously, contemplating, and maybe he’s jumping to conclusions, but if he could break a mirror, couldn’t he also...use that power to hurt something--someone--else? Wouldn’t it be better to know what he’s doing?

Rey smiles at him again, but the sadness in her eyes is back, and Poe winces. “You’d never hurt anyone,” she says. “You’re Poe.”

“Uh, thanks,” he mumbles, “I think.”

“I’ll be here,” says Rey, and then she’s gone, and he’s alone, left to think. Around him, the cafeteria begins to buzz noisily again. 

What did he just get himself into?

~

He’s Force-sensitive. 

He doesn’t know what that means. 

But he’ll figure it out if it takes everything he has. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this got a lot longer than I expected it would! Love it when that happens. 
> 
> I apologize for any ooc-ness that might take place within the latter end of this one-shot--feelings are hard and sometimes ooc-moments are a result.


End file.
